I sat there soaking in the aroma of coffee and freshly sautéed onions and peppers, my mouth-watering at the prospect of indulging in the omelet I recently ordered. half a dozen earlier risers than I, were already advertisements to the chef and his obvious expertise in pleasing the palate. The bell dinged, and I watched as my waitress headed for the counter to pick up what I hoped was my order, with a graceful swoop of the arm a plate full of home-fries, bacon and a large western omelet appeared in her hand as she fluttered around the various obstacles on her way to the next growling tummy.

Suddenly, her forward progress continued only from the knees up as her foot caught the leg of the chair that had just slid back from someone oblivious to her approaching. She tried desperately to free herself from the chair while at the same time maintaining the balance on food and coffee in her hands, unfortunately something had to give as the inertia on the plate of food won the battle, the food became a flying missile headed for the back of a man’s head who was just about to sample his blueberry pancakes!

The shout to Watch Out! came half a beat too late as the UFO glanced off his unsuspecting head, the reactive side of his mental capacities sent the pancake laden fork spinning through the air and clinking to the floor half a step in front of an exiting patron. In the portion of a second before she stepped down on the pancake laden utensil the briefest flash of awareness that something had just passed by her and landed in front of her on the floor.

The elderly lady just about to come in out of the rain and have a spot of tea and an english muffin was simultaneously struggling to close her black umbrella and pull open the entry door at the precise instant when some one obviously lacking self-control was exiting the breakfast shop. As the off-balance patron crashed into her, a sudden gust of wind caught the half-open umbrella and sent it careening out into the morning rush hour traffic!

Across the street Mrs. Andrews along with her 4 your old, Billy, were hurrying along, she late for work and harried from a morning chasing around young Billy who decided he didn’t want to go to daycare today. Billy was carrying his favorite ball, a bribe from mom, who promised he could bring it to daycare with him if he cooperated the rest of the morning. One moment she had Billy’s hand tightly in her own and the next she was grappling at nothing but air, Billy’s ball had slipped from his hand fallen to the sidewalk and hit his foot in mid-stride, it ricocheted out into the street. Billy dived frantically for his ball and being oblivious to the traffic chased the ball directly into the oncoming traffic.

A commuter bus full of passengers headed to the lower east side was barreling towards Billy, the driver momentarily distracted by a man who had just spilled his steaming latte on his lap and was screaming out in loud unintelligible sentences, had caused the driver to look up at his large viewing mirror just above his sun visor to determine the nature of the problem and didn’t see the young boy dart into the street, however, what did get his attention was the black umbrella that suddenly hit his windshield completely obscuring his vision and causing him to immediately slam both his feet onto the brake pedal.

As the bus slammed to a stop all the other pedestrians stopped and turned at the high-pitched scream of a woman yelling out one word “BILLY”!

The bus shuddered to a stop and the umbrella slid from the windshield and what appeared in the drivers line of sight immediately sent his pulse into overdrive, for there, not more than 6 inches from the grill of his bus stood a small boy, ball in his hand and eyes the size of the moon, mouth gaping open and eyes filled with terror.

On second thought, I think I’ll pass on the omelet, I think I’ll have the blueberry pancakes instead.